the story begins in a small texas town, but it s not just any town. this is college station, home to texas a&m. and in 1999, home to 21-year-old student jamie hart. i was immediately struck by her beauty. he was her boyfriend at the time. he says jamie was the light of his life. he remembers when he first laid eyes on her. i could barely speak when i saw her. she was so pretty. it was like when the color came on in the wizard of oz. i had been living in a dark world, and she showed me a world full of color. she was a loyal friend. funny, outspoken. she would tell you what was on her mind at all times. it was early one morning in may, jamie s roommates couldn t find her. they called chuck. i got a call asking if i knew where she was? i said no, she didn t come over
carolyn would have still been here, i mean, there s no doubt. and what about the woman at the start of our story? jamie hart s case had been handled by the brazos county sheriff s department, but after ynobe had been arrested it didn t take long for the college station s office and the department to determine ynobe was also jamie s killer. i remember the feeling of wanting to feel relieved but all i could think was this is this is exactly what i knew was going to happen. he struck again, another girl is dead and another family has lost their precious daughter. chuck says to this day he misses jamie and has never gotten over being viewed as a suspect. having to spend such a long time under investigation for the
whereabouts and try to get him to confess. and if a failed polygraph wasn t suspicious enough, then listen to what the detective says chuck told him next. he said he had done some bad things and wouldn t tell us why. did you look him in the eyes and say is one of those bad things killing jamie hart? i did. he denied it. at that point in time i thought he could be the killer. the more you start to think he s the killer, how does he react to that? he s very nervous. he acted like he was guilty. chuck was free to go. but as authorities waited for his dna to be processed, the detective developed a theory of the crime that made sense to him. he was in love with her. he didn t want to lose her, and they were having some issues in their relationship. so the boyfriend, a likely suspect was in the cross hairs, but when the dna results came back the dna was not a match. so were you able to rule him
in the next town over detective elliott continued to work the jamie hart case. he spent the last year casting a wide net for possible suspects. you took dna from 70 people. mainly people being booked into jail for violent crimes. anyone in an area that just didn t want to talk. we took dna from everybody. but he also had never taken his eye off her boyfriend, chuck cruise. there was something that was bothering you about him. there was a lot bothering me about chuck cruise. so the county sheriff s office kept investigating chuck and communicated with the dn about possibly convening a grand jury. chuck and his lawyer spoke to the detective on many occasions and the detective continued to
engine still running. that raised suspicion. we sent a team to process the car. inside the car, a driver s license that belonged to jamie hart. when detectives showed up at chuck s work place that afternoon, he says his heart sank. when they told me that she had been found dead it felt like i had been hit by a truck. wow. so your sense of dread was coming true. realized, fully realized. did fear spread throughout the campus. oh, yes. i mean, it was front page news. kristen lancaster was a 19-year-old freshman. my brother worked with jamie at the time and i ll never forget him coming home devastated. a killer in a college town is terrifying. very much so, yes. this is something that happens in chicago, it s something that happens in houston, it s not something that happens in aggie land.